Thread: Kobo for studying Japanese
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Old 11-02-2021, 10:38 AM   #2
salamanderjuice
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Posts: 927
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Join Date: Jul 2017
Device: Boox Nova 2
Quote:
Originally Posted by spacepope View Post
Hey guys!

I have a Kobo Libra H2O and I love it. However, I have had significant problems sideloading Japanese books and would like to just have a e-reader dedicated to reading Japanese books on, buying from the Rakuten store.

I'm open to models old and new. My #1 priority is a snappy lookup/dictionary... and not breaking my wallet. I would want 7in screen or less.

My research so far:
  • If I buy new, I can get 4000 yen off the model as I have a lot of points
  • A Secondhand Libra H2O + case goes for 18,000 yen (10,000 yen off base price)
  • A Secondhand Clara HD goes for 11,000 yen (4,000 off base price)
  • A Secondhand Nia/Aura/Glo goes for about 9000 yen
  • A Secondhand Mini goes for 4000 yen
  • Kobo Touch's are a dime a dozen, about 2000 yen

I would imagine, just for lookup speed, a newer model would be better. But not sure how new it would have to be.

Would love any advice from any Japanese language students/readers.
Are you sideloading books as ePubs or Kepubs? Only Kepubs will do vertical Japanese books correctly.

Personally I found reading Japanese books is somewhat ironically a better experience on Kindle than Kobo (For English I like Kobo over Amazon). Dictionary lookup I found was better on my PW3 as it actually selected the word most of the time and not a single character and it had a Japanese-English dictionary built in that could do verb deconjugation. Perhaps that's changed as it's been a few years since I used either. Right now I mainly just use the Kindle app on an Android eReader. It's not the best for dictionary lookup but I like having access to all my books on one device.

I would recommend a device with 200-300PPI just because it makes text much sharper which I think is nice for particularly complex kanji. There isn't really massive speed differences between these models as a number of them share the same SoC with the same amount of RAM and CPU. The Clara HD and Libra H2O use the same CPU and have the same amount of RAM. I'd probably get a Clara HD out of these as it seems like the best value, same CPU as Libra and 300PPI screen.

I think the touch and mini are just too old these days.
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